France claimed the Kennebec River because it provided a potential route to invade Quebec (as Benedict Arnold would demonstrate in 1775). The English claimed the St. George River because they held deeds, even though the sachems who signed them often believed they were only granting the right to use the land for hunting, fishing or safe passage. The French insisted that the sachems were not empowered to sell land, since the Abenaki territory belonged to the entire tribe. France and England were at peace, and New France could not take overt action against the settlements (and particularly their alarming blockhouses) in the disputed area. Instead, the French government secretly engaged the Indians, guided by their French Jesuitmissionaries, to hinder the expansion of English sovereignty. Missionaries with a dual loyalty to church and king were embedded within Abenaki bands on the Penobscot, St. Croix and Saint John rivers. However, Norridgewock Village was considered Quebec's predominant advance guard.

In 1694, Father Sébastien Rale (or Rasle) arrived at Norridgewock to establish a Jesuitmission, the first school in Maine. He built a chapel of bark in 1698, and despite objections from the medicine men, Rale converted most of the inhabitants to Roman Catholicism. The chapel burned in 1705, but it was replaced with a church in 1720. It stood twenty paces outside the east gate, and measured 60 feet (18 m) long by 25 feet (7.6 m) wide, with an 18-foot (5.5 m) ceiling. Forty Abenaki youths in cassocks and surplices served as acolytes. In a 1722 letter written to John Goffe, the church was described by Johnson Harmon and Joseph Heath as:

"...a large handsome log building adorned with many pictures and toys to please the Indians..."

Speaking the Abenaki language fluently, Father Rale immersed himself in Indian affairs. His "astonishing influence over their minds" raised suspicions that he was inciting hostility toward the Protestant British, whom he considered heretics.

During King William's War, on July 18, 1694, French soldier Claude-Sébastien de Villieu with about 250 Abenakis from Norridgewock under command of their sagamore (paramount chief), Bomazeen (or Bomoseen) raided the English settlement of Durham, New Hampshire, in the "Oyster River Massacre". The French and Abenakis killed 45 English settlers and took 49 more captive, burning half of the village, including five garrisons. They destroyed the crops and killed all of the livestock, causing famine and destitution for the survivors.

When Queen Anne's War broke out, with New France and New England again fighting over the border between New England and Acadia, Massachusetts Governor Joseph Dudley arranged a conference with tribal representatives in 1703 to propose that they remain neutral. On the contrary, however, the Norridgewock tribe in August joined a larger force of French and Indians, commanded by Alexandre Leneuf de Beaubassin, to attack Wells in the Northeast Coast Campaign. Father Rale was widely suspected of inciting the tribe against the English because their settlements and blockhouses encroached on Abenaki land (and so uncomfortably close to Quebec), but also because they were Protestant and therefore heretics. Governor Dudley put a price on his head. In the winter of 1705, 275 British soldiers under the command of Colonel Winthrop Hilton were dispatched to seize Rale and sack the village. Warned in time, the priest escaped into the woods with his papers, but the militia burned the village and church.[3]

In retaliation, there was a bounty put on Father Rale. Finding the village deserted in the winter of 1705 because its occupants, including Rale had been warned of an impending attack, Colonel Winthrop Hilton order his 275 British soldiers to burn the village and the church.[3][4]

In 1713, the Norridgewocks had sought peace with the English at the Treaty of Portsmouth, and accepted the convenience of English trading posts on their land (though they protested the tendency of traders to cheat them). After all, beaver and other skins could be exchanged for cheap goods following a journey of one or two days, when travel to Quebec up the Kennebec, with its rapids and portages, required over 15 days.

But their acceptance of the English faded as Rale instigated the tribe against the encroachment of houses and blockhouses that followed trading posts. He taught the Abenaki that their territory should be held in trust for their children. On July 28, 1721, 250 Abenakis in 90 canoes delivered a letter at Georgetown addressed to GovernorSamuel Shute, demanding that English settlers quit Abenaki lands. Otherwise, they would be killed and their settlements destroyed.

In response, Norridgewock was raided in January 1722 by 300 English troops under Colonel Thomas Westbrook. They discovered the village almost deserted, with the gates wide open. The tribe was gone hunting. Troops searched for Rale but found only his papers, including letters from New France Governor-general Vaudreuil promising ammunition for Abenaki incursions against the British. The tribe retaliated for the invasion by attacking settlements below them on the Kennebec, burning Brunswick on June 13, 1722. Some of the raids were accompanied by Rale, who would occasionally allow himself to be seen from houses and blockhouses under siege. On July 25, 1722, Massachusetts Governor Samuel Shute declared war on the eastern Indians.

The site of the Norridgewock Native American village in Maine, in what is now Madison. The rock at the side of the road bears a plaque marking the site.

Detail of the memorial plaque.

During Father Rale's War, at about 3:00 pm on August 23, 1724 (N. S.), English troops attacked Norridgewock for the last time. A force of 208 soldiers had left Fort Richmond (now Richmond) and divided, leaving about 80 soldiers including three Mohawks under the command of Captain Jeremiah Moulton. His militia quietly approached the village, which at that time no longer had a stockade. A startled Indian emerging from a cabin gave a war whoop, then darted back inside to get his musket. Screaming women and children ran from houses to swim or ford across the river and up into the woods. In the confusion, about 60 braves fired guns wildly but did little harm. At that point the regiment, ordered to withhold fire until after the enemy's first volley, took aim—with deadly effect. The warriors fired again, then fled across the river, leaving 26 dead and 14 wounded. Bomazeen (or Bomaseen), the sachem, who with Sebastien de Villieu had led 250 Abenakis to Durham, New Hampshire on July 18, 1694, for the Oyster River Massacre, was shot fording the Kennebec at a place thereafter called Bomazeen Rips. From a cabin, old Chief Mogg shot one of the Mohawks, whose brother then shot him. Meanwhile, from another cabin Father Rale was firing at soldiers. Refusing to surrender, he was shot through the head while reloading his gun.

Scalps of the dead were collected for bounties in Boston. The soldiers plundered 3 barrels (0.48 m3) of gunpowder, together with a few guns, blankets and kettles, before returning to their whaleboats at Taconic Falls. One of the Mohawks, a brave named Christian, slipped back to set the village and church on fire, then rejoined the militia. The 150 survivors of Norridgewock returned the next day to bury the dead. Subsequently, most abandoned the area and, "in deplorable condition", relocated to Saint-François and Bécancour in Quebec.